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Few filmmakers have to experience the very real thing they’re dramatising on camera actually happening around their set. But then few films are set and shot in the Occupied West Bank.

As Farah Nabulsi recalls, while making The Teacher around the city of Nablus, she witnessed the forced demotion of a Palestinian home by Israeli forces and settlers torching Palestinian olive trees, both of which take place in her film.

“On my way to set at five in the morning, by the side of the road was a Palestinian family, a couple with six young children, standing in front of the rubble of their freshly demolished house,” she says. “So yeah, this harsh reality is unfolding around you.”

Premiering in Toronto on Sept. 9, the film follows a school teacher (Palestinian acting royalty Saleh Bakri) precariously trying juggling his dangerous involvement in the resistance movement with his position as a...

The British Palestinian is up for an Oscar with her debut, filmed at a notorious Israeli flashpoint called Checkpoint 300. The London-based director talks about her shocking visits to the Middle East

Farah Nabulsi was at home in west London when she found out her film The Present had been nominated for the Oscar for best live action short. She’d persuaded her teenage sons to stay home and watch the announcement. When she heard her name, she jumped up on the table. Her eldest looked at her as if she’d gone mad. He’d got it into his head that this was the actual ceremony and she had lost. “He was like, ‘Why are you so happy? They didn’t pick you.’ He killed the moment.”

The film is Nabulsi’s directing debut, a powerful 20-minute piece of humanist cinema about a Palestinian man, Yusef (Saleh Bakri), who wants...

Law and order, and the lack thereof, were impossible to ignore amid last year’s “defund the police” protests, and the same tensions are reflected in the Oscar-nominated live-action shorts lineup. Some of the entries predate the George Floyd killing, while another was shot in direct reaction to that tragedy last summer; two more were made abroad, on opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, touching on themes that transcend borders. It’s not unusual for finalists in this category to come pushing a political agenda, and yet, this crop doesn’t feel like agitprop, but sincere, activist storytelling, well worth seeking out in theaters or on demand, as ShortsTV has once again made possible.

In “The Present,” which won top honors at the SXSW Film Festival, Palestinian Yusef (Saleh Bakri) and his daughter Yasmine (Mariam Kanj) must cross an armed checkpoint in order to fetch a refrigerator for his wife’s anniversary.

The Oscar-nominated live action shorts come from filmmakers based in the U.S., U.K, and the Mideast. They all center on the human desire to be seen as people.

Feeling Through

Doug Roland and Susan Ruzenski

Roland’s entry into the deaf-blind community came through a chance meeting about 10 years ago with a man holding up a sign asking for help to cross the street late one night in New York City. He was so struck by the encounter that he wrote the script for “Feeling Through” and completed it in 2019 with the help of the Helen Keller National Center and its now CEO, Ruzenski, who is nominated with him. Authenticity matters to Roland, so he cast Robert Tarango, whom he discovered working in the cafeteria at the Hknc. “I’m really happy that there is some strong disability representation this year,” he says, referencing his fellow nominees like “Sound of Metal.

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. Eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and will be displayed next to revision date.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Collective

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2021 Oscars Predictions:

Best Live Action Short Film

Updated: Feb. 25, 2021

Awards Prediction Commentary: There seems to be a strong three films at the top Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Human Voice” (with Tilda Swinton), Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe’s “Two Distant Strangers” (with Joey...

It's Yousef's (Saleh Bakri) wedding anniversary. His wife is despairing over a failing fridge, so he decides to splash out and buy her a new one. This ought to be a simple enough task, but they live in Palestine, so to reach the shop he has to pass through an Israeli checkpoint. It's a thoroughly dehumanising process which at one point involves him being locked in a cage, but it's only the beginning of the challenges he will face.

Much of Farah Nabulsi's powerful film is seen through the eyes of Yousef's small daughter Yasmine, who is accompanying him and learning how the checkpoints work. This includes having to learn that she should not try to stand up for her father, nor he for himself, no matter how much the Israeli soldiers seem to be bullying him. Staying as calm as he can and using gentle...